shouting loudly

Framing the Digg story: Free speech triumph or mob rule?

In my last post about the Digg/HD-DVD hack story, I fretted that the take-away lesson from the Digg story would be that Web 2.0 is just too hot to handle. The mainstream media is generally framing it this way, but the tech news world is mostly framing it as a small victory for free speech and democratic governance of the net.

In the first camp, consider the SF Chronicle’s headline: User revolt at Digg.com shows risks of Web 2.0. Forbes describes Digg’s “dilemma” in coping with a “meltdown.” Here’s the lead from yesterday’s Toronto Star story: “Building a business on mob rule is dangerous.”

In stark contrast, several online news outlets have framed the story as a triumph of free speech online. On his ZDNet blog, Dana Blankenhorn describes the story as the latest chapter in a perpetual “conflict between the law and Internet values [in which] values usually win.” TechNewsWorld frames it as civil disobedience in the name of the right to tinker. InformationWeek blogger David DeJean sees users forcing Digg to be an honest broker. CNet promises, “The revolution will be posted.” Each of these and dozens more frame the story as an issue of freedom of speech.

This is an excellent example of the construction of radically different news worlds. (Joe Turow, author of Breaking Up America, would be proud.) The tech crowd creates and perpetuates a worldview in which left-coast code (technological innovation) trumps right-coast code (law), while the mainstream news media frame every online breach of the legal order within the frame of moral panic.

I must admit that I only foresaw the latter. I actually failed to imagine the cyber-libertarian trope being applied to this story, which is ironic, since that very same vision is what made Digg users rebel in the first place. It’s called the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a reason.

Even from within the mainstream media frame, though, the freedom of speech trope may begin to make some traction in this story–thanks largely to the quixotic, censorious work of the AACS. Chair Michael Ayers is threatening legal actions against those who have disseminated the HD-DVD key. (Because the RIAA’s legal actions against filesharers have proven so effective…)

Here’s an extended series of quotes, excerpted from this BBC story:

“Some people clearly think it’s a First Amendment issue. There is no intent from us to interfere with people’s right to discuss copy protection. We respect free speech.

“They can discuss the pros and cons. We know some people are critical of the technology.

“But a line is crossed when we start seeing keys being distributed and tools for circumvention. You step outside of the realm of protected free speech then.”

In other words, the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions can only be interpreted as curtailing our First Amendment rights–something Benkler argued as far back as 1999 (see esp. pp. 427-429).

If Ayers can publicize this trade-off in as many news outlets as possible, Rep. Boucher (D-VA) will have a lot of traction as he seeks to pass his DMCA reform bill, HR 1201. Given the choice between better protection for copyrighted materials and free speech (not to mention the right to copy their DVDs the same way they copy CDs), most Americans will choose free speech in a heartbeat.